


Shoot-Out At Withered Pine

by wolfvegas



Series: High Voltage [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Cruelty, Death, Gen, Hanging, Lynch mob, Maniac, Raiders, Shooting, Violence, shoot out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 09:31:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16172363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfvegas/pseuds/wolfvegas
Summary: A deadly shoot-out between the notorious Canadian raider gang "High Voltage" and a group of brave civilians, intent on ending their brutal crime spree.





	Shoot-Out At Withered Pine

Ronto, Canada

2282

Inhabited by the notorious raider group "High Voltage", the Withered Pine Railway Station has long been avoided by local civilians, yet still sees a steady influx of unfortunate victims, be they unsuspecting travellers or residents dragged from their homes for the sick and twisted amusement of bored raiders.

 

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The most recent of these raids had been upon the small town of Foggy Lake, a town recently founded by a group of travellers beside a newly formed body of highly irradiated water. Those who weren't selected for abduction back to the raider camp were drowned in the lake, their bodies left floating in the mist atop the water, however those who resisted were brutalised and mutilated, chiefly by "Sick Pup" and "The Freak" who remained at the town long after the other raiders had left removing body parts and organs from still alive victims and nailing them to the walls of their houses.

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Word of this atrocity soon spread throughout the region, ultimately leading to the formation of an anti-raider group of vigilantes known as "Rough Justice" set on ousting High Voltage from their lair and lynching them on the spot. Less than one week after the events at Foggy Lake, 29 civilians set out towards Withered Pine Railway Station armed with rifles, handguns and energy weapons, intent on avenging the dead and rescuing the captured.

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However the mission was compromised from the offset; an untimely encounter with a pack of coyotes trimmed their numbers down to 27 (with 2 group members limping back to base with serious bleeding leg wounds) and the group was thrown entirely off-course in the fracas, forcing them to double back on themselves to ensure they didn't approach the raider's encampment from the western entrance, lest they have to proceed through the Withered Pines tunnel or "Tunnel of Doom" as it had come to be known. This time delay saw the afternoon sun dwindle, and with it a vast majority of courage as darkness would surely favour the raiders on the land they knew so well.

 

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The raiders proved to be much better organised than anyone could have guessed (owing greatly to the military experience of a couple of former soldiers in the group) and a spotter positioned high on the Spalding overpass was able to signal back to camp about the impending attack, allowing the raiders to mobilise and prepare defences.

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The civilian group were allowed to advance straight into the heart of the raider encampment without resistance, carefully approaching 3 raiders playing caravan round a small, white table which to their abject horror discovered was no more than 3 mannequins dressed in raider clothing. Opening fire from every side, the raiders tore into the civilians in a manic flurry sending them scarpering in every direction. Initial losses for the civilians were high, with a high number of injured splayed on the ground, awaiting a crueller fate, but the impulsiveness and insanity of the raiders played to their disadvantage with raiders high on jet and psycho charging into battle brandishing no more than pool cues or police batons being cut down with laser beams or turned into piles of ash.

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A small group of civilians managed to capture 2 raiders and drag them screaming from the camp and were in the process of hoisting one by the neck from a high branch of a deciduous elm tree, too caught up in the moment to realise the remaining civilians inside the camp desperately required back-up. A horrific sound had begun to echo through the darkening sky and the terrifying outline of Sick Pup emerged atop a railway boxcar, howling towards the moon and drooling long strands of white saliva down a rapidly clenching jaw. Brandishing an Assault Rifle he opened fire on everyone below, panting like a dog with his tongue extended. With another wolf-like howl he reached into his pocket and produced a grenade which he unpinned with his teeth and lobbed into the mayhem below. The resulting blast sent an arm flying through the air so fast it struck him in the face and knocked him from the boxcar onto the ground below where he quickly abandoned the assault rifle and began to hack at combatants from a machete blade that had been strapped to his back.

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Meanwhile, and equipped with a black, spiked ball and chain, The Freak had begun to systematically exterminate any wounded left squirming on the ground (including fellow raiders) whilst howling out in answer to Sick Pup, the same dogged expression in his unblinking eyes.

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The two maimed and chopped their way through the carnage side-by-side until only a handful of civilians remained and reluctantly surrendered. Having incurred a fatal gun shot wound in the battle that ripped a hole in his stomach, The Freak's howls of joy became shrieks of terror as the chemicals running through his veins could no longer mask his pain and he died a slow, agonising death.

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Unsympathetic to his friend's suffering, Sick Pup had gathered the surrendered civilians and was holding them prisoner in a tiny room inside the Withered Pines Station building where he had taken a keen, personal interest in one particular member of the group - who was a young husband and new father to a little girl - and cracked his skull open with a machete only after many hours of brutality in full view of the other captives, taking time out now and then to gradually beat to death an older prisoner who strenuously objected to the dishonourable treatment of the young man.

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No captured civilians ever made it out of the station alive and of the entire group only 12 ever returned home. The raiders were temporarily ousted from Withered Pine Station but over time their numbers began to fill up and they retook the territory. Sick Pup left the camp however - probably grieving the loss of his brother-in-arms - and many say he now roams the wilderness alone howling at the moon in search of a new soul mate who can match his delight in violence.


End file.
